Karin Vogt (lead TALE researcher) is a professor for Teaching as a Foreign Language at the University of Education Heidelberg, Germany.

Karin Vogt has extensive experience in the establishment of new teacher training structures. Her research interests include vocationally oriented language learning, intercultural learning, classroom-based language assessment, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and media and telecollaboration in the foreign language classroom.

Abstract

Average language teachers spend 30 to 50 per cent of their working hours on assessment-related activities (Coombe, Troudi and Al-Hamly 2012) with assessment comprising the conception, design, implementation, administration, scoring and monitoring of assessment procedures and products in the framework of both standardized testing such as e.g. university entrance tests or national tests and classroom-based language assessment. To equip teachers as one important group of stakeholders with the necessary knowledge, skills, tools and attitudes, the development of language assessment literacy (LAL) is necessary (Inbar-Louie 2008, Taylor 2009).

Research has shown, however, that the actual LAL levels of teachers seem to be low (Hasselgren et al. 2004, Vogt & Tsagari 2014), and that this seems to be an international phenomenon (Kvasova & Kavytska 2014, Tsagari & Vogt, in press). In order to bridge the gap between desired and actual competence levels related to LAL, a group of international experts in assessment has joined forces in an ERASMUS-funded project to enable teachers as the most important group of stakeholders to professionalize in this area. On the basis of a needs analysis involving both learners and teachers, a free online educational resource has been developed that enhances co-operation between teachers in different educational contexts. The purpose of the session was to present the Moodle-based LAL course and to discuss and analyze the results of the piloting phase.